[Usability] Re: Translation of numeric values (application gnome-schedule)

[Philip Van Hoof <spamfrommailing freax org>]

On Sun, 2004-06-20 at 19:16 +0200, Ole Laursen wrote:

> [ CUT ]
>  Some reasons why written numeric values and sentences using it are 
>  very hard to translate
> [ / CUT ]

> and so forth. Where there is a will, there is a way. And it does not
> have to be so complicated that it requires your localisers to
program. :-)

Yes, it's why I decided to throw it on the i18n-list :). In the hopes
that you people have a solution for this rather complicated problem. And
you proposed a nice one below on which I will comment in a few seconds.

> I see it this way: 99.9% of the users will only have to edit those
> cron entries that they have created themselves. So they probably
> understand what they see. If you really want to be user friendly, a
> graphical representation of the schedule would probably be better and
> eliminate some of these troubles.

I never thought about programming a graphical presentation and to be
honest I really do like the concept. I cannot yet imagine how it would
look but I sure will think about it. If one of the people here could
draw or explain a possible way of representing a frequency in a gui, I
would be glad to hear about it.

For this suggestion I added the usability mailinglist to the CC-list.

> > A lot people in the OpenSource community are doing what they do to
show
> > other people (like their employer and friends) their skills. I want
to
> > exploit that. I really do. Yeah I even want to abuse it if
necessary.

> Hm, you just need to understand that you wouldn't necessarily get much
> support from us then. Personally, I'm not in it for your ego, I'm in
> it for a nice desktop environment and, of course, my own ego. :-)

Oh, I never mend that (only) my ego could benefit the abusing of why
people are doing OpenSource :-). I actually mend that the application or
the 'nice desktop' could benefit from it :-) and, of course, my own
ego. :-). So very much like your reasons.


-- 
Philip Van Hoof, Software Developer @ Cronos
home: me at freax dot org
work: Philip dot VanHoof at cronos dot be
http://www.freax.be, http://www.freax.eu.org